On a walk around the loch the other day I’ve noticed that the beavers have been pretty active this winter. It helps that we have had a very mild winter and so the beavers have been able to take advantage of this. Usually the loch freezes for 3 or 4 months over winter and the beavers have to rely on their food caches which they would have prepared in the autumn. This winter they have been busy felling some trees whilst they have only tasted others (see photo).

I also saw a very nice flock of Long-tailed Tits feeding on the birch trees around the loch and I even flushed out a Wood Cock on my walk.
 

This feed was drawn from the Aigas website

As many of you may know last year we were lucky enough to receive a pair of wildcats in the hope of establishing a breeding programme. It is thought that there are only between 400 – 1000 Scottish wildcats roaming the wilds of Scotland and many of these may not be pure wildcats, because of the problem with hybridisation from domestic cats. So here at Aigas we are hoping to breed wildcats in the hope that they can be released into the wild.

When the cats arrived in February last year it looked very promising as there was lots of mating behaviour, which we managed to capture on our stealth cameras. However, this behaviour soon tailed off and we think that this behaviour was in response to moving and acclimatising to their new surroundings.

A few days ago I was at the cat pen and as usual the cats were looking very relaxed as they sat on their perch. Shortly afterwards the female decided to go for a walk around the enclosure, nothing unusual about that, but following closely behind her was the male. They often follow each other, but on this occasion there was something different about their behaviour. As the male approached the female and almost bumped into her he tried to jump onto of her. The female on the other hand had other ideas and as soon as the male tried she turned around and swiped him around the face. This did not deter the male and he tried again several more times. The female eventually gave up and retreated to the nest. The male however, remained outside and started spraying all around the nest box and along the wall of the enclosure directly behind the nest box. Once he had finished he then sat down and started to caterwaul!

This is very exciting and we really hope that something comes of this behaviour – so watch this space!
 

This feed was drawn from the Aigas website

What a difference a year can make, this time last year we were covered in snow and this year we can almost walk around in shorts and a T-shirt! Some of the trees still have their leaves and the wildlife around Aigas seem to be having a great time. Everywhere we turn there are squirrels running around and the bird feeders hardly need topping up, because the birds have enough natural food out there. The beavers are certainly making the most of the mild weather as well. Quite a few of the birch trees around the loch have been ‘tasted’ by the beavers and many of them have been felled. A beaver expert recently told us that during the autumn months beavers will ‘taste’ a series of trees and gnaw the trunk part of the way, but not completely. As the winter starts to set in the beavers will then go back and completely fell some of these trees and store the wood in food caches to keep them going over winter when waterbodies are completely frozen. Clever stuff!

Here are some photos of the work that the beavers have been up to.

We even have some evidence of a beaver kit almost felling a tree, as can be seen by the photographs and by these beaver chips. The larger chips are those that have been produced by an adult, because the teeth marks are wider compared with those on the smaller chips. On closer inspection you my notice lines in these chips, each line represents one bite. The beavers lock their jaws on the tree and will make a series of bites until they produce a wood chip. These wood chips are then discarded because they contain no nutritional value. It is the bark and the leaves that the beavers eat, because they contain all the sugars from the tree.

This month we also said goodbye to Neep one of our yearling beavers, but it is not all sad news because she has now gone to a new home; she will now be part of another demonstration project in England. Every year we have to remove some of the young beavers from the loch to prevent overcrowding and as the beavers start to reach sexual maturity at 2 years old this may also cause conflict with their parents, so we remove them in order to prevent this. I am sure Neep will be very happy in her new home.
 

This feed was drawn from the Aigas website

 Our final specialist birding week of the season, Autumn Birds, took place at the beginning of October and again, what a wonderful week!  I am just going to give a few highlights of the week to give folk an idea of what we birders get up to.

Our first day was spent on the estate and surrounding area – brilliant views of male and female common crossbill – very nosily calling and fluttering around with Sitka spruce cones in their beaks.  A non-bird related highlight was finding a yellow flowering buddleia covered in butterflies and bumblebees.

The following day we explored Easter Ross and dodged the weather to find about twenty whoopers fresh in and lots of golden plover in the fields.  A bit of sea watching turned up a bit of a rarity – a glaucous gull – nicely perched on a rock, and our moorland exploration got us a view of a ringtail harrier.

On the Black Isle we found a nice flock of redwing and fieldfare also just arriving at this time and had another amazing non-bird related view of a large dog otter only about 20 meters away on the land which we then watched fishing and feeding.  More sea watching and we had juvenile puffin ticked off as well as the usual auks.  Scaup were plentiful as were waders such as bar tailed godwit and dunlin.

Nairnshire got us our crested tits plus some lovely flocks of knot, godwits and sandwich terns.  Our west coast adventure was also a big success – fantastic views of an adult sea eagle soaring at the same height as the gulls!

The only thing we didn’t get in the end was the golden eagle mainly due to the fact that it was pouring with rain the day we were searching but while not seeing eagles we had amazing views of feral goats, roaring red deer and a couple of small birds such as stonechat and dippers.

So all in all, another very successful birding week (final list reached 80 odd species) with a lovely bunch of people, as usual J.

This feed was drawn from the Aigas website

Towards the end of August and the beginning of September we have had some amazing beaver sightings.  During our hide visits we have seen all eight beavers out and about at the same time; swimming, feeding and grooming.  Recently, one of the best sightings involved an adult (Boris) and a yearling (Neep or Tattie) grooming each other for 30 minutes, although they did stop briefly when they were interrupted by one of the kits.  The kit was soon seen off and the pair returned to their grooming.  Once they had finished the yearling started to feed, but Boris had other ideas; he fell asleep on the bank!! It must have been a very relaxing grooming session!

Shortly afterwards Boris was joined by Lily our adult female.  She started to have a good groom herself when one of the kits (possibly the same one as earlier) joined her.  The kit must have felt a bit hungry, because it tried to suckle from Lily.  However Lily was not too keen and kept pushing the kit away.  The kit was very determined, but it eventually got the idea.

When kits are new born and for the following month they do rely on the female for food, but once they emerge from the lodge they can eat solid food such as herbaceous and aquatic plants.   Now that the kits are three months old they will have moved on to the hard stuff – wood!!  At this age they can gnaw bark and fell small branches.  So there is no excuse for relying on mum anymore!  You can also imagine why Lily was not too keen to feed the youngster, especially now that their teeth are fully developed! 

Now that the nights are drawing in the opportunity to see the beavers in the evenings has ceased, however there is still chance to catch a glimpse of the beavers early in the morning before they head back into their lodges.

Here is some recent footage of a beaver starting to fell a tree.

This feed was drawn from the Aigas website

Three baby beavers born at Aigas Field Centre this summer have been named “Skye, Islay and Arran” after a nationwide competition was run to come up with suggestions. The winning names were submitted by Emma Townsend, aged 13, from St Albans. Emma is now planning to visit Aigas next year with her family so that they can visit the beaver kits that she named.

“Skye, Islay and Arran” were selected from hundreds of entries by Alicia Leow-Dyke, the staff naturalist at Aigas Field Centre. Alicia, who is responsible for monitoring the beavers, said, “baby beavers cannot be sexed, so we needed three uni-sex names with a Scottish flavour. Islay jumped out at me because Lagavulin, distilled on Islay, is my favourite malt whisky! You can’t get a more Scottish flavour than that!”
Alicia commented “the baby beavers, known as kits, emerged from their lodge for the first time on 18th June. It was moment of huge excitement as we had been waiting for them to appear for some time. It was fantastic when first one, then two and finally three kits bobbed to the surface. They are very fluffy and buoyant when they first emerge and it’s very amusing to watch them as they swim around for the first time!”

Based near Beauly in Inverness-shire, the Aigas Field Centre beaver demonstration project has been running for five years and their beavers have bred every year. However, previously they have only had two young. Aigas remains the best place in Scotland to watch beavers in a wild state. Warwick Lister-Kaye, the field centre manager, said, “our beavers are fenced in but they don’t know it. They live as wild in our loch and we have a 100% success rate of showing them to Aigas guests. We are beaver advocates; we aim to show people the many benefits that these indigenous animals bring to a water-side habitat.”
 

This feed was drawn from the Aigas website

Two weeks ago Virginia McKenna came to stay at Aigas and during her time here she visited our wildlife hides.

During her visit to the beaver hide we had some great sightings of three beaver kits (YES, three kits! At first we thought we had only two kits, but we have since discovered during previous visits that we have three kits! These have been nicknamed Wee Jimmy, Wee Wee Jimmy and Wee Wee Wee Jimmy by Sarah our Education Leader! Although, they are going to be given proper names very soon, sorry Sarah!) All three kits were spotted on the bank eating aspen and learning how to fell trees by gnawing branches off the aspen.

They are fast learners and they were very successful at gnawing and eating the bark from the branches. They will be felling trees in no time! We also had a good view of one of the yearlings, Neep or Tattie and one the adults a bit further along the bank. This was a good opportunity for us to compare the size of the adults with this year’s young. The kits still have a lot of growing to do!

As the light began to fade we decided to try out the new pine marten hide and within half an hour we had a male pine marten. He was great fun to watch as he feasted on the delicious peanuts and jam that we had spread around the new feeding station that was recently constructed by Laurie Campbell and his family. The pine marten was a nice finish to our fantastic night of wildlife watching.
 

This feed was drawn from the Aigas website

In the past couple of weeks we’ve had a couple of ranger birthdays – and because we live and breathe wildlife at Aigas, we thought we’d eat it too.

Happy Birthday to our rangers Jenny and Sarah!

Their wildlife-themed cakes were ranger-made. The Crested tit was Jenny’s, while Sarah received a cake modelled on one of our three baby beavers.

This feed was drawn from the Aigas website

GOSHAWK! Sitting having a cup of coffee outside this morning and a raptor flew into a tree by the river 80 metres away. I'm wondering if I should go and get a scope.

Its still there 30 seconds later and so I sneak inside and grab a scope. I sneak out again and fiddle about with legs and things so that I can look while sitting. All the while I'm convinced that it will fly before I get a good look.

However, I get the scope on the bird and see straight away that its a male goshawk. I'm really chuffed and get chance to have a long look at its stunning long yellow legs and orange eye. Then I think - I should digiscope it for Facebook! I grab my phone, punch in the unlock code, pull up the camera app, position the lens over the scope eyepiece, align it all so that the bird is centralised, look for the shutter release button, put my finger to it gently and..... the goshawk flew away!

Such is life!

This feed was drawn from the Aigas website

Those of you who are regular followers of our blog will know that the education and ranger team has been entranced with the transformation of some peacock caterpillars that we have been watching for the last few weeks. We had 19 pupae hanging from the lid of our large clear tub, and after 13 days of development, 12 emerged as fully formed adult peacock butterflies!

After drying off their wings for a few hours (undercover as it was a rather wet day!) they have all now taken their maiden flights and gone off to find mates and continue the cycle. Unfortunately 7 pupae are still intact, and it is now extremely unlikely that they will further metamorphose, however it is quite normal that not all butterflies will survive this process due to a variety of environmental and genetic factors.

This feed was drawn from the Aigas website